Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)

How does dialectical behaviour therapy work?

The characteristics of DBT include being:

• Support-oriented
  • Identify your personal strengths and build on them to expand your social skills and improve your self-identity.
• Cognitive-based
  • Recognize and identify your thoughts, beliefs and actions that result in your distress and correct faulty ways of thinking.
• Collaborative
  • Explore your relationships and work through any relationship issues. DBT may also include interactive activities that will help you to improve your interpersonal effectiveness, mindfulness, and distress tolerance skills.
• Action and behavior oriented
  • You work towards making practical changes to your automatic behaviors that cause you distress.
• Skill building
  • Gain a variety of skills and techniques aimed at soothing, calming, and helping you to make conscious choices.

When is dialectical behaviour therapy used?

A lot of individuals who have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder tend to choose DBT as the main method for working with their issues because this type of therapy looks at improving interpersonal effectiveness, expanding awareness and mindfulness, aiding in emotional regulation and improving distress tolerance skills which are underdeveloped in individuals with this disorder. Also, because dysregulation leads to higher levels of suicidal ideation and/or self-destructive behavior, there is an emphasis on behaviors and safety. DBT has been used in treating other concerns as well, including:

• Anger management
• Eating disorders
• Anxiety
• Conduct disorder
• Borderline personality disorder
• Dealing with difficult people
• Dependant personality disorder
• Dissociative identity disorder
• Emotional regulation
• Narcissistic personality disorder
• Self harming
• Sexual abuse and assault

This type of therapy may be used to treat other conditions and concerns in addition to those listed above. It may also be used in conjunction with other treatment methods. Your therapist will work with you to determine the best treatment method for your individual circumstances.

You should be aware that there is no treatment method that is successful for every person. What works for you, may not work for someone else.